Since February, I’ve been teaching circus skills to kids on the road. Sometimes they say funny things. Here are a few of my recent favorite conversations. 1. Me (gesturing to a trunk): “Please sit down on that chair.” Kid: “That’s not a chair.” The kid sits down on the trunk. Me: “Well, are you sitting […]
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I have a hillbilly friend who stays here once a year for the unicycle festival. I also have an old wooden chair shaped like a hand. It was my grandmother’s. In my family we call it the hand chair. Among my friends we call the hillbilly either Kentucky John or Boomhauer, because he talks like […]
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For a while now I’ve been eying some of the brightly patterned back packs my students carry. Today one girl let me check hers for tags, but I couldn’t find a brand. I asked her whether she knew where she got it, and to my surprise she said she did. I asked where. She’s in […]
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My sister, who teaches high school English, had to leave home for a meeting with a visiting poet. Her young daughter asked, “What’s the meeting about?” My sister answered, “Poetry.” “What’s poetry, mommy?” How do you explain poetry to a child whose stories all rhyme? My sister answered, “It’s when you take nice words and […]
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